Piano Improvisation Series

Six New Piano Albums July 2022

Michael Robinson

Gazing Down

Azure Miles Records Piano Improvisation Series

Cover art is handmade paper from India

 

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1. I Didn't Know What Time It Was (Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart) 19:50

Michael Robinson - piano

 

2. Love For Sale (Cole Porter) 26:47

Michael Robinson - piano

 

3. The Gypsy (Billy Reid) 26:28

Michael Robinson - piano

 

All music performed by Michael Robinson on piano

Recorded, Mixed and Mastered by Catharine Wood at Planetwood Studios

All songs used with licensing permission from the publishers

 
Joy Unknown, Another World and Color of Your Dream were recorded during one afternoon session on Wednesday, April 27, 2022.

Gazing Down, Distant Bell and Chance To Say were recorded during a subsequent afternoon session on Wednesday, May 18, 2022.

These liner notes are for all six albums.

There are seventeen total tracks on these six albums, including twelve standards, four Beatles songs, and one original.

While previously believing Beatles songs were impervious to reinterpretation, I've found myself surprisingly drawn to them both emotionally and technically. In terms of substance and originality, the finest Beatles songs are equal in quality to jazz standards. My sense is that one key towards reinventing them is to stray far from their original renderings in search of personal resonance.

The twelve standards I've focused on for these albums are all timeless classics with myriad memories attached to each one in terms of recorded and live performances.

Nearly all of the standards here I know most recently from the recordings of Frank Sinatra, regarded as the leading jazz vocalist by myriad jazz greats. Sinatra's recordings span both swing and modern jazz in their evolutionary settings.

My interpretations of standards and Beatles songs are unusually abstract in terms of melodic and harmonic relationships, resulting from a polymodal orientation, and Indian classical background, my left hand creating a new type of tamboura in the guise of a double bass, while my right hand sings inner visions.

My love of standards is deep, first hearing them played while a child by my mother on the piano at home. Beginning around 16, I was awakened to how standards were largely the primary improvisational material together with blues and modal forms for the artists informing my immersion into recordings and live performances of modern jazz. My love for the music of the Beatles began around the tender age of 8.

An avant-garde artist myself, my compositions and performances for meruvina began as my vision of jazz and Western classical following the Interstellar Space album by John Coltrane and Rashied Ali. In recent years, my piano improvisations have become a second personal jazz direction.

Joy Unknown - Junction, Don't Worry 'Bout Me, In A Mellow Tone.

Another World - My Foolish Heart, I Get A Kick Out of You, Serenade In Blue

Color of Your Dream - Tomorrow Never Knows, Day By Day, Polka Dots and Moonbeams

Gazing Down - I Didn't Know What Time It Was, Love For Sale, The Gypsy

Distant Bell - How About You, I Remember You

Chance To Say - Dear Prudence, Come Together, The Word

- Michael Robinson, July 2022, Los Angeles

 

© 2022 Michael Robinson All rights reserved